Local leaders support sought in nutrition drive
TACLOBAN CITY- Nutrition officials issued an appeal to local government leaders to make nutrition as one of their priority programs, citing it as not a “privilege but a right” among their constituents.
Several local officials in the region to include other parts of the country are not really pushing enough programs that are nutrition-related, the officials lamented.
“Our leaders should realize that implementation of programs on proper nutrition is not a privilege but a right,” Salvador Serrano, science research specialist of the Food and Nutrition Research Institute (FNRI), during the weekly “Harampang ha PIA” held at the regional office of the Philippine Information Agency.
Serrano said that with the apparent lack of support and interest among local government leaders in implementing health and nutrition-related programs, it is not surprising that problem on malnutrition, which affect mostly children, continues to persist.
Based on the 2006 survey conducted by the FNRI , the country’s lead agency in nutrition research and development, 3.3 million Filipino children of zero to five years old are considered underweight. The FNRI did not provide data for the region as to its problem on children considered malnourished.
“We have the expertise and technology but if we don’t have support from our local leaders, we cannot expect the implementation of nutrition-related programs,” Serrano said.
The FNRI official said that support from the local leaders count a lot in the realization of their mandate to make all Filipino people, children and adults, nutritionally sufficient.
“The situation is not that dire,” Serrano said, referring to other local leaders who are also supportive of their undertaking.
Marilou Galang, also of the FNRI-Manila, said that their office is well aware of this situation wherein local leaders are not giving nutrition among their priority programs reason why they are doing their own efforts to make the issue more relevant and for needed actions be given by the local leaders.
“We have to drumbeat the issue further, especially on what the (national) government is doing. And we should not stop from there as we should continue our monitoring,” on the implementation of nutrition-related programs, Galang said during the same media forum at the PIA.
She said that aside from local leaders, the role of the media could not also be discounted.
While there are programs related to improving the nutrition condition of the people, the implementation of these programs remains to be desired, Galang said.
The FNRI has devised what it described as a three-pronged approach in making nutrition-related programs or issues more “palatable” and reaches to their intended sector or group.
The approaches include food-based aspect, capacity building and reaching out to media for a wider dissemination of information.
The FNRI officials said that their office has tapped the media in making their programs getting the needed mileage which could even reach up to the remotest villages in the country.
The FNRI has formed Nutrition Communication Network (Nutricom) wherein media were tapped to disseminate information on correct nutrition, on government programs on nutrition and help resolve problems affecting nutrition.
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